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Transcript of the Testimony of Dan Pekarek
Date: November 6, 2013Volume: I
Case: In Re: Joplin Critical Investigation
Printed On: November 13, 2013
Holliday Reporting Service, Inc.Phone: 417-358-4078
Fax: 417-451-1114Email:[email protected]
Internet:
Dan Pekarek In Re: Joplin Critical Investigation
417-358-4078
Holliday Reporting Service, Inc.
Page 1
IN RE: JOPLIN CRITICAL INVESTIGATION
SWORN STATEMENT OF
DAN PEKAREK
Taken on Wednesday, November 6, 2013, from 3:53 p.m. to 4:11
p.m., at the law offices of Juddson H. McPherson, LLC, 626
S. Byers, in the City of Joplin, County of Jasper, State of
Missouri, before
SHARON K. ROGERS, C.C.R.650,
a Certified Court Reporter and a Notary Public within and
for the County of Jasper, and State of Missouri.
Dan Pekarek In Re: Joplin Critical Investigation
417-358-4078
Holliday Reporting Service, Inc.
Page 2
APPEARANCES
MR. THOMAS E. LORAINE
Loraine & Associates, LLC
4075 Osage Beach Pkwy., Suite 300
Osage Beach, MO 65065
Dan Pekarek In Re: Joplin Critical Investigation
417-358-4078
Holliday Reporting Service, Inc.
Page 3
S T I P U L A T I O N
IT IS HEREBY STIPULATED that this Sworn Statement may be
taken by steno-mask type recording by SHARON K. ROGERS, a
Certified Court Reporter, and afterwards reduced into
typewriting.
It is further stipulated that the signature of the
witness is hereby waived, and that said Sworn Statement of
said witness shall be of the same force and effect as
though said witness had read and signed Sworn Statement.
Dan Pekarek In Re: Joplin Critical Investigation
417-358-4078
Holliday Reporting Service, Inc.
Page 4
I N D E X
Page/Line
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. LORAINE . . . 5-4
E X H I B I T S
Exhibit #A. . . . . . . . 5-6
Advice of Rights
Note: Exhibits in separate binder
(sic) - typed as spoken
(ph.) - phonetic
Dan Pekarek In Re: Joplin Critical Investigation
417-358-4078
Holliday Reporting Service, Inc.
Page 5
1 DAN PEKAREK
2 Having been first duly sworn and examined,
3 testified as follows:
4 DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. LORAINE:
5 Q. Mr. Pekarek, I'm going to hand you what's
6 been marked as Exhibit #A, an Advice of
7 Rights form. Have you read that?
8 A. Yes, I have.
9 Q. And did you understand it?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. It basically tells you you have to answer me,
12 you have to answer truthfully, and if you
13 don't you can't be held criminally
14 responsible, but you can be held for your
15 job. You understand that?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. I do not have the right to fire anybody.
18 A. Sure.
19 Q. But recommendations are made. I'm witnessing
20 your signature and that you understand this
21 form, and with that stated I would like to
22 ask you a couple of questions. There are not
23 many, but they're important.
24 A. Okay.
25 Q. Have you talked with anybody about why you're
Dan Pekarek In Re: Joplin Critical Investigation
417-358-4078
Holliday Reporting Service, Inc.
Page 6
1 here?
2 A. No, Brian just asked me to come over.
3 Q. Do you have any idea why you're here?
4 A. No.
5 Q. You're the head of a department of the City
6 of Joplin?
7 A. Yes, I am.
8 Q. And what is that department?
9 A. The Health Department.
10 Q. Who is your immediate supervisor?
11 A. The City Manager.
12 Q. Mark?
13 A. Mark Rohr.
14 Q. Mark Rohr is your City Manager, and how long
15 has he been your supervisor?
16 A. I don't know, as long as he has an employee
17 of the City. I don't recall exactly when he
18 came.
19 Q. You were here before him?
20 A. Yes, I was.
21 Q. And were you a department head before him?
22 A. Yes, I was.
23 Q. And who did you work for before that?
24 A. Steve Lewis.
25 Q. How long did you work under Lewis?
Dan Pekarek In Re: Joplin Critical Investigation
417-358-4078
Holliday Reporting Service, Inc.
Page 7
1 A. Several years. I don't know how many years I
2 was here before Mark came, but it was several
3 years.
4 Q. Have you noticed a difference in the
5 management style of the two?
6 A. Certainly there's differences with every
7 manager I've ever worked with.
8 Q. But can you tell me a little bit about Mark's
9 management style?
10 A. You know, I think generally speaking, at
11 least with my department my experience has
12 been pretty hands off. You know, I think
13 that tends to be probably true for most City
14 Managers and Health Departments. I think
15 most City Managers, we're kind of a
16 department that it's a little bit unusual for
17 a City Manager to manage and so I think most
18 City Managers that I've worked for have been
19 kind of hands off in that regard.
20 Q. What does your department do?
21 A. Well, I mean sort of consistent with what you
22 might normally associate with a Health
23 Department. I mean we've got child
24 immunization programs, adult immunization
25 programs, the WIC program, we have an infant
Dan Pekarek In Re: Joplin Critical Investigation
417-358-4078
Holliday Reporting Service, Inc.
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1 children program. All of the environmental
2 services. Restaurant inspections, day care
3 safety and sanitation inspections, swimming
4 pool sanitation inspections, animal control,
5 emergency preparedness activities relative to
6 public health activities, those kinds of
7 things.
8 Q. What's your background?
9 A. I have a Bachelor's Degree in Environmental
10 Health from Missouri Southern State
11 University here in Joplin.
12 Q. This is your first city job?
13 A. No, I started with a local industry right out
14 of college and worked there for several years
15 in their Environmental Compliance Division,
16 and this came to the City in 1986, I believe,
17 '87, something like that.
18 Q. There's been some statements that I should
19 talk with you about Mark's management style.
20 A. Okay.
21 Q. I don't want to poison my discussion with you
22 by suggesting what it is, but can you
23 describe, do you have difficulty working for
24 Mark?
25 A. No, I mean as a department head you're always
Dan Pekarek In Re: Joplin Critical Investigation
417-358-4078
Holliday Reporting Service, Inc.
Page 9
1 going to have an occasion disagreeing with
2 your supervisor, with the City Manager, but
3 generally speaking over the years I think in
4 most issues related to public health we've
5 been fine with my decisions, I think.
6 There's always going to be a few that we have
7 disagreements on.
8 Q. What about the disagreements, the nature of
9 the disagreements?
10 A. Let me think of some. I don't think of any
11 specific.
12 Q. Are you intimidated in any of those decisions
13 by Mark?
14 A. Not more than I would I guess any other
15 supervisor that I've had in the past.
16 Q. Has he yelled at you?
17 A. You know, he's raised his voice at me.
18 Q. Publicly?
19 A. Not that I can recall publicly ever.
20 Q. Has it been in front of other employees?
21 A. I don't believe so.
22 Q. Has there been anything in front of -
23 something about a homeless task force?
24 A. I serve on a Homeless Coalition, I also serve
25 on a homeless what they call Implementation,
Dan Pekarek In Re: Joplin Critical Investigation
417-358-4078
Holliday Reporting Service, Inc.
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1 but this was a task force that was formed
2 several years back relative to homeless
3 issues and I serve on that as well.
4 Q. Have you experienced difficulties within that
5 regard?
6 A. You know, we've had some disagreements about
7 what I thought was maybe a portion of that
8 task force work and he certainly had
9 different opinions about that.
10 Q. How did he express those differences?
11 A. You know, I mean some of it was just, Dan, I
12 don't agree with you on this, I think, you
13 know, I think one way and you think another.
14 Generally speaking I think in most cases he
15 understood, tried to understand why I
16 disagreed with him, you know. He certainly
17 didn't always agree with me and why I thought
18 things were going to go a certain way.
19 Q. Any implications from disagreeing with him?
20 A. No, I've never had any. I mean my
21 evaluations have always been very good and
22 throughout all of the homeless activities
23 he's never reprimanded me in any way.
24 Certainly he's never asked me to change a
25 vote in my votes in the coalition or anything
Dan Pekarek In Re: Joplin Critical Investigation
417-358-4078
Holliday Reporting Service, Inc.
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1 like that.
2 Q. Any comments about his presence or bullying?
3 A. You know, like I said it was obvious in
4 certain situations, certain times in those
5 coalition meetings that he disagreed with
6 maybe some of the activities of the homeless
7 coalitions. Myself being a member of that
8 coalition it was obvious, I mean, but he
9 never indicated to me that like I said that I
10 should change my vote, that I should vote a
11 certain way, that I should - never
12 reprimanded me for any of the work that we
13 did on the homeless coalition activities.
14 Q. Any ramifications from voting not his way?
15 A. No. I mean certainly any time you're serving
16 on a committee like that and the committee is
17 going one direction with what they think is
18 the one way we ought to approach something
19 and he as my supervisor, you know, doesn't
20 agree with that it's a little bit of an
21 uncomfortable situation, but he never asked
22 me to change any votes, never reprimanded me
23 for voting the way I voted, or thinking the
24 way I thought.
25 Q. You have no problems with his style?
Dan Pekarek In Re: Joplin Critical Investigation
417-358-4078
Holliday Reporting Service, Inc.
Page 12
1 A. You know, nobody likes to think that they are
2 getting sideways with their boss, but, you
3 know, he never ever reprimanded me in any
4 way, shape, or form.
5 Q. Okay. Any other comment?
6 A. No. Mark generally speaking has been hands
7 off with my department, he's been supportive
8 of 99 percent of the things that I've done
9 over the years. We have had some
10 disagreements in that coalition, but nothing
11 to the point that he's ever other than
12 saying, Dan, I disagree with you, I think
13 you're wrong on this kind of a thing, that's
14 the substance of our conversations.
15 Q. That's it?
16 A. Yeah, he's never --
17 Q. No vindictiveness that you've noticed?
18 A. Never threatened me, never anything like
19 that. Do I feel, you know, at certain times
20 I felt a little bit uncomfortable going
21 sideways with my boss, no doubt about it, but
22 --
23 Q. Because of his physical presence?
24 A. No, not physical presence. What do you mean
25 by physical presence?
Dan Pekarek In Re: Joplin Critical Investigation
417-358-4078
Holliday Reporting Service, Inc.
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1 Q. Any gestures?
2 A. No, no, no, no. No, he's my boss. My job is
3 to serve my boss and do a good job for him.
4 I take that very seriously.
5 Q. And the job is to do the best job you can for
6 the City?
7 A. Absolutely.
8 Q. If there is a conflict between that and your
9 boss then you've got a problem.
10 A. Well, and where we disagreed on some of those
11 things he certainly listened to my
12 disagreements, certainly said, you know, why
13 do you think this way, and I would tell him,
14 you know, tell him in a few situations I
15 disagree with you, I think that this is going
16 to go a different way. But never, ever did
17 he threaten me in any way, shape, or form. I
18 mean I'm the kind of guy that likes to make
19 sure that I'm doing my job and doing as good
20 as a job as I can for my boss so I don't like
21 it when I think I'm doing something that's
22 not, you know, to be what he wants me to do,
23 but in those situations in that homeless
24 coalition there were some situations where I
25 thought unfortunately we were having to have
Dan Pekarek In Re: Joplin Critical Investigation
417-358-4078
Holliday Reporting Service, Inc.
Page 14
1 those disagreements.
2 Q. Well, you followed your conscience in those
3 matters regardless of his decisions?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. And no ramifications to you?
6 A. No, he never - I mean he's always been very
7 good to me in my personnel evaluations and I
8 would have thought it would have shown up
9 there.
10 Q. Well, I'm not so interested in your
11 evaluations, I'm more interested in his
12 evaluations, you know, what you think of his
13 work. That's where I'm coming from. If your
14 evaluations were inappropriate he would have
15 fired you or dismissed you. I'm more
16 interested in what you have perceived as an
17 employee of his.
18 A. I think most of the time we have been in
19 agreement over the years on the projects that
20 I've worked on that he's tasked me with. The
21 homeless work we don't always agree and he
22 hasn't always agreed with the direction that
23 committee has gone.
24 Q. Why is that? What's happening?
25 A. Oh, I don't know. I guess some of it has to
Dan Pekarek In Re: Joplin Critical Investigation
417-358-4078
Holliday Reporting Service, Inc.
Page 15
1 do with just some of the direction of the
2 committee relative to what we think might be
3 beneficial and help the community on the
4 homeless situation. You know, he just feels
5 one way and we feel a different way.
6 Q. What is the difference?
7 A. Some of it has to do with probably the
8 perception of - some of the committee members
9 felt like - I'm trying to think of some of
10 the specific projects. There were a whole
11 host of projects that were outlined in the
12 report, potential projects that the City
13 might implement or the community, not
14 necessarily the City, but the community at
15 large by doing it over a portion of time
16 relative to improving homelessness in the
17 community. Some of those projects - I think
18 somewhere along the line we got I think his
19 perception of where some of those projects
20 were going to go and some of the committee
21 members perception of where some of those
22 projects might go somehow got divergent. I'm
23 not quite sure where all that occurred.
24 There was a project here in the community
25 that had to do with construction of it's not
Dan Pekarek In Re: Joplin Critical Investigation
417-358-4078
Holliday Reporting Service, Inc.
Page 16
1 a shelter, it's more of a, it's not really a
2 treatment center, it's a faith based - in a
3 way it's a shelter, I suppose, where an
4 individual could check into this facility and
5 over the course of say six months of not
6 inpatient treatment but a lot of faith based
7 treatment, a lot of things like that,
8 counseling and so forth, that hopefully you
9 could solve some of their problems that are
10 causing them to be homeless. I think the
11 committee felt about that project and some of
12 the other projects that they should be best
13 done by individual organizations in the
14 community, you know, a church or some sort of
15 individual faith based entity that wanted to
16 take that on to go ahead and do it. That's
17 kind of the way I think most of the committee
18 felt. Mark, he didn't feel that way, he felt
19 like that there should be more of a central
20 core control over these various projects.
21 Q. Under his supervision?
22 A. Well, not necessarily. I don't know that it
23 was necessarily going to be under his
24 supervision or even the City's. It was
25 always kind of hard to I think make everybody
Dan Pekarek In Re: Joplin Critical Investigation
417-358-4078
Holliday Reporting Service, Inc.
Page 17
1 understand those of us that worked on that
2 plan I think we perceived that several of
3 these projects would, in fact, be owned, if
4 you will, have ownership by individual
5 entities in the community. Because frankly
6 the City didn't want to be the operator of
7 shelters. They didn't want to get in the
8 business of operating shelters. And you've
9 got to kind of understand where this all
10 started. There was a shelter that had opened
11 up in the community that was not well run
12 frankly, it was a real unsafe situation for
13 the individuals that were staying there, and
14 it just kind of cropped up overnight in a
15 location. And that was kind of the reason
16 that this whole committee was formed, you
17 know, is there some way we can improve
18 communication among those folks in the
19 community that do homeless services, those
20 folks that might want to do homeless
21 services. Because there's a whole host of
22 entities in the community that provide some
23 level of homeless services. And I think part
24 of Mark's vision was that we create - and
25 from this plan there was certainly some
Dan Pekarek In Re: Joplin Critical Investigation
417-358-4078
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Page 18
1 direction that we wanted to go towards some
2 sort of coordination of those services so
3 that we could avoid those kind of bad
4 situations from popping up again. I think
5 the committee felt that we could do this
6 without having any kind of central real
7 strong control over those projects. Mark
8 felt differently, that there needed to be
9 some sort of more centralized control over
10 it, but as a committee we were wrestling with
11 how we could do that and not have City
12 control over it. You know, how does the City
13 have control over it without having control
14 over it kind of a thing. So I think it was
15 kind of a fundamental just difference of
16 opinion of how do you exercise that level of
17 control over those projects without really
18 owning them, you know. We were trying to
19 approach it one way and he was wanting us to
20 approach it a different way.
21 Q. Who won?
22 A. It's really not gone anywhere. We were right
23 to that point of trying to figure out how to
24 do that, the tornado hit literally, and
25 everything got shelved for quite some time.
Dan Pekarek In Re: Joplin Critical Investigation
417-358-4078
Holliday Reporting Service, Inc.
Page 19
1 Q. For obvious reasons.
2 A. Yeah.
3 Q. The homeless needs went up?
4 A. Yeah, I think they went up over the course of
5 time after the tornado. A lot of that was,
6 some of that was because of the tornado,
7 people becoming homeless because of the
8 tornado, some of them frankly because of
9 individuals that just came to the community
10 from other places that were already homeless.
11 FEMA tells us that's a phenomenon that
12 occurs with disasters. Homeless will flock
13 to your community from other locations in the
14 country looking for free stuff, free
15 services, lots of free stuff, and that
16 happened here as well. Those numbers have
17 largely decreased and we are probably back
18 more to what we traditionally experience in
19 homelessness. I think it's more of a
20 philosophical difference, Mark is trying to
21 keep us from getting into those situations
22 where you have that bad actor pop up in the
23 community again. He sees it I think more of
24 we can accomplish that by having some sort of
25 centralized control over homeless services.
Dan Pekarek In Re: Joplin Critical Investigation
417-358-4078
Holliday Reporting Service, Inc.
Page 20
1 He would like to see us have better
2 coordination of those services, and we would,
3 too. Just philosophically how do you get to
4 that coordination, how do you get to that
5 control.
6 Q. Okay. Thank you for coming over today.
7 A. You bet.
8 Q. Keep what happened in here between us.
9 A. Okay.
10 Q. Any discussion of this discussion could
11 result in some kind of violation of the
12 secrecy.
13 A. You bet.
14 (SWORN STATEMENT CONCLUDED)
15
Dan Pekarek In Re: Joplin Critical Investigation
417-358-4078
Holliday Reporting Service, Inc.
Page 21
REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE
STATE OF MISSOURI
ss.
COUNTY OF JASPER
I, SHARON K. ROGERS, Certified Court Reporter in the
State of Missouri, do certify that pursuant to the
foregoing Stipulation the witness came before me on the 6th
day of November, 2013, was duly sworn by me, and was
examined. That examination was then taken by me by
steno-mask recording and afterwards transcribed; said Sworn
Statement is subscribed by the witness as hereinbefore set
out on the day in that behalf aforesaid and is herewith
returned.
I further certify that I am not counsel, attorney, or
relative of either party, or clerk, or stenographer of
either party or of the attorney of either party, or
otherwise interested in the event of this suit.
_________________________
SHARON K. ROGERS, CCR-650